From the August 21, 2014 edition of The Union Newspaper:

By Ivan Natividad, The Union

Cedar Ridge Salon, a Grass Valley business located on the 12000 block of Colfax Highway, recently expanded their facility to a 1,200-square-foot space, adding two new hair stylists, and a masseuse.

“We were kind of growing out of our space,” salon owner Michella Lockwood said. “Customers love it, they all say it’s very calming, and it has a really nice open feel to it. Each employee has their own space and it is really private, our clients are very happy about it.”

Lockwood said she expanded the salon in May after another business moved out of a nearby storefront, allowing the salon to double the amount of space they previously had.

Originally from Chico, Lockwood moved to Nevada County in 1994, and bought the salon in December 2010 after working for years as a hair stylist.

“I came up here and fell in love with this little Cedar Ridge area,” Lockwood said. “It’s a really cute quaint area, great parking kind of sets us apart, no traffic, it’s just a sweet little community.”

Lockwood said the salon has been open since 1978, and has grown in business over the years providing styling, barber cuts, and hair and nail coloring and treatment. The salon also began offering straight razor hair cuts, and hot lather razor shaves by barber Glenda Nasralla.

“That was something that was missing in our community,” Lockwood said.

“We had to expand and gave her a little antique barber room and she loves it, the guys love it. She’s really good at it.”

Nasralla has been working in the salon for two years and says her customers love the new services they provide.

“It’s a nice area and we’re in a nice location, a well-traveled road,” Nasralla said. “It’s a great environment to work in, since the expansion its been really nice with the people that have been added.”

Mary Fox is the salon’s new massage therapist and started providing massages for customers in June. Fox has close to 20 years of experience, working in areas such as the Sierra Hot Springs, Tahoe City, and Mexico. Fox works out of her own treatment room, and offers anywhere from a half-hour foot massage, to an hour and a half full-body.

“I’ve developed my own style, I like to relax people,” Fox said. “But I also like to work out their kinks. So I can give both a heavy massage or light, I have a pretty wide variety of things I can do. But I basically do Swedish deep tissue.”

Another addition to the Cedar Ridge Salon team is Renee Allen, the former owner of Atelier Salon and Spa in Grass Valley. Allen says she recently closed down her own salon to focus on her clients, and doing hair as opposed to running a business.

“It’s been fabulous, very liberating,” Allen said. “Clients absolutely love the new environment and the energy from the new salon, and are very happy as well with the change.”

Kellie Monroe also started in June as a new hair stylist at the salon, specializing in color and designer haircuts. Monroe has more than 20 years of experience as a stylist and says enjoys her new coworkers.

“That’s what makes part of my job so fun, is just staying current and up to date with it,” Monroe said. “Everybody is so friendly and just the knowledge and experience everybody has is kind of awesome to walk into, because we kind of play off each other and it’s an accumulative of years of experience.”

While Lockwood says she expects it to be a little slow for her business after the expansion, she hopes word of mouth will spread.

“We have really experienced staff, excellent parking, we’re less than three miles from downtown Grass Valley, and we have reasonable priced services,” Lockwood said. “It’s a really cool neighborhood, we really make our clients feel like family.”

For more information call 530-272-2557, or go to http://cedarridgesalon.com.